Back in the NT4 days, if you wanted to download service pack 6 off the Microsoft web site, there was a specific javascript that looked for Netscape and then ran a for loop for some huge number (of doing nothing) before loading the page. It took a couple minutes to run and wasn't even well hidden. Right in the source of the page itself.

Thankfully the script was removed shortly after the issue was reported but as far as I'm concerned, it shows that being a mega-corporation does not make you immune to petty or childish behaviour.

I think a good point is being made that corporations are a lot better at telling the government what to do than the citizenry. Interestingly, that also boils down to corporations caring a lot more about protecting their interests. Maybe they understand what the masses do not: Ultimately, your very existence depends on it.

See, they already know the magic words that get millions of dollars squandered on very silly research. Chances of success or usefulness are irrelevant, they'll get the grants and avoid starvation until the next crackpot idea springs up.

There's a lot of money spent on pretending to care about climate change in both government and industry.

In a similar vein... I still like to use a GUI that lets me see more than one window at a time.

Despite all the trendy claims to the contrary, I do not get confused from it, even when they overlap! I must be some sort of genius. I've also found myself able to click on icons and buttons that are smaller than 1/16th of the screen, navigate drop-down menus and even read text composed of characters less than 80 pixels high. I also possess the superhuman ability to notice interface elements that aren't surrounded by vast, empty space.

Interface designers nowadays are the large oafs stomping on my LEGO Technic to offer me a box of DUPLO.

And as a whack-job libertarian myself, I tend to agree with your assessment of character there. Then again, wouldn't we stereotypical libertarians be all about free and independent women like Ayn Rand's archetypal Dagny Taggart?

Well, they sort of did... About as much as Windows did the Start menu. They added a layer of extensions on top of all the crap you don't need to give you back the features they had removed because they decided that you weren't using your computer properly.

What I'm having trouble figuring out is how this thing can be so very sluggish and memory hungry when all they appear to have done is remove stuff the stuff Gnome 2 users were actually using. Of course, you need to spawn all of Webkit and Spidermonkey to have Gnome Shell running so that might have something to do with it. I also have to congratulate them on their ability to waste more screen space by making the interface simpler. One would expect a simpler interface to leave more room for your work, not less.

Oh well, I've decided to spend my efforts adding the few little things missing from LXDE rather than trying to tame Gnome3 back into becoming usable.

On your second point:You don't need regulation, they already break plenty of existing laws... We'd probably do quite well just *applying the fucking law*. Fraud and theft are already illegal. Ironically, it is the magic of regulations that usually lets them get away with it. The modern definition of regulation is this: A tool that corporations use to have the government protect them from competition. They write the regulations. Clamouring for regulation is like asking for more gasoline to help put out a fire. Here are the only two pieces of regulation you need: Fraud = Jail. Theft = Jail. You apply these rules, you close down Wall Street and most other large corporations even at one minute of hard time per dollar.

Hah, give the current trend a moment to catch up. 4k displays just means that in a year or two, menus and icons are going to be forced at a minimal height of 512 pixels and interface elements are going to eat up all that real estate. It is a great sin to assume that people want more pixels because they want more information on the screen and the Gnome3/Windows8 designers are hard at work driving away the last few heretics to the confines of obscurity.

The desktop must become a tablet. The interface must free you from the horrors of having more than one window on the screen. Fonts must be large. If an interface element cannot be used by a quadriplegic banging his head on the monitor, you have failed as a holy enforcer of the lowest common denominator. Choice is the enemy of your user and you must protect him from it at all cost. Amen.